This invention springs from disclosure document number 233618 filed in the U.S. Patent Office by Costa Haralambopoulos on Aug. 22, 1989, the improvements and embellishments thereto having been developed by the co-inventors during the period running from the inventions original conception to the filing date of this application.
The new value-added services (generally referred to as 700 or 900 number services) are designed for mass calling to a service provider number with the calling party paying for the call. These value-added services [e.g., DIAL-IT 900-service offered by American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T)] allow service providers to offer a variety of value-added telecommunication services (Dial-A-Prayer, Televoting, etc.), to their clientele for which additional charges are assessed. To access the service, the caller dials a 900-XXX-XXXX number and is routed to a Carrier Switch Network (CSN) Mass Announcement System (MAS) where the callers listen to the service provider's prerecorded announcement. The service providers select the rate callers will pay for the service when the 700 or 900 number is assigned by the CSN. The value-added number and the rate selected by the service provider are stored in a rate table in a CSN billing system. When a call is made to a service provider's value-added number, the central office switching system in the Local Exchange Company (LEC) makes a call record including the calling and called party of each call. These call records are transported periodically (typically every month) from the LEC to the CSN, and rated using the appropriate service provider's rate table. This rating process involves a table look-up process to determine each caller's charge for a call to a particular service provider's number. The resulting caller charge records are then returned to the LEC which includes the charges as part of the caller's monthly bill.
More advanced carrier network services provide the service provider more flexibility in defining their services by routing the value-added calls to a service provider-selected location. One such service is the MultiQuest telecommunications service offered by AT&T. These new services enable a service provider to provide a greater variety of value-added services which may now include interactive dialog between the caller and the called service provider.
Thus modern technology has provided automatic telephone systems which include automatic billing combined with value-added rate billing arranged so a called party may receive a portion of the monies billed to a calling party for the product or services provided to the calling party. These systems which function as a fee collection mechanism for entities providing services over telephone exchanges are contemporarily identified as 700 or 900 value-added exchanges. In prior art value-added exchange systems, a calling party is advised of a charge when a value-added exchange is dialed. That charge may be a fixed fee or a timed rate charge. The charge is added to the caller's telephone bill and the telephone company functions as a fee collector for the service or product provider.
The current value-added exchange practice allows telephone service providers to be guaranteed payment for the services or product which they provide but these systems offer limited flexibility with respect to rates charged.